tood that hereafter
Miss Grey's appetite was to be encouraged by having her soup served from
her father's table by her father's own hands, and that I should be there
to receive it.

"Mr. Grey is coming," said I, approaching the waiter and handing him the
stiletto loosely wrapped in tissue paper. "Will you be kind enough to
place this at his plate, just as it is? A man gave it to me for Mr.
Grey; said we were to place it there."

The waiter, suspecting nothing, did as he was bidden, and I had hardly
time to catch up the tray laden with dishes, which I saw awaiting me on
a side-table, when Mr. Grey came in and was ushered to his seat.

The soup was not there, but I advanced with my tray and stood waiting;
not too near, lest the violent beating of my heart should betray me. As
I did so the waiter disappeared and the door behind us opened. Though
Mr. Grey's eye had fallen on the package, and I saw him start, I darted
one glance at the room thus disclosed, and saw that it held two tables.
At one, the inspector and some one I did not know sat eating; at the
other a man alone, whose back was to us all, and who seemingly was
entirely disconnected with the interests of this tragic moment. All this
I saw in an instant,--the next my eyes were fixed on Mr. Grey's face.

He had reached out his hand to the package and his features showed an
emotion I hardly understood.

"What's this?" he murmured, feeling it with wonder, I should almost say
anger. Suddenly he pulled off the wrapper, and my heart stood still
in expectancy. If he quailed--and how could he help doing so if
guilty--what a doubt would be removed from my own breast, what an
impediment from police action! But he did not quail; he simply uttered
an exclamation of intense anger, and laid the weapon back on the
table without even taking the precaution of covering it up. I think he
muttered an oath, but there was no fear in it, not a particle.

My disappointment was so great, my humiliation so unbounded, that,
forgetting myself in my dismay, I staggered back and let the tray with
all its contents slip from my hands. The crash that followed stopped
Mr. Grey in the act of rising. But it did something more. It awoke a
cry from the adjoining room which I shall never forget. While we both
started and turned to see from whom this grievous sound had sprung, a
man came stumbling toward us with his hands before his eyes and this
name wild on his lips:

"Grizel! Grizel!"

Mrs.